The present disclosure relates to an image processing device, an image processing method, and a program, and more particularly, to an image processing device, an image processing method, and a program that correct flicker occurring in an image.
When an image is photographed by a camera that includes an XY address scanning type image sensor such as a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor under illumination of a fluorescent lamp, striped luminance irregularity or color irregularity occurs in a video image. This phenomenon is called flicker. The flicker is caused due to an operation principle of an image sensor, since a fluorescent lamp connected to a commercial power supply (alternating current) basically flicks repeatedly at a double period of a power frequency.
In an image in which flicker occurs, a luminance change pattern with a striped shape extending in a horizontal direction appears. For example, when a moving image is observed, there is a problem that a vertically flowing striped shape may be observed.
As a technology for suppressing such flicker disclosed in the related art, there is Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2011-160090.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2011-160090 discloses a method of extracting a flicker component from an image, calculating a flicker correction coefficient configured by a reversed phase pattern of the flicker component, and removing the flicker component included in the image by performing correction by multiplying a pixel value of the image by the calculated flicker correction coefficient.
In recent years, for example, imaging devices that photograph a plurality of images set at different exposure times, combine the images of the different exposure times, and generate a wide dynamic range image in which more accurate pixel values are set from a low luminance portion to a high luminance portion have been suggested to generate a wide dynamic range image.
Thus, when the process disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2011-160090 is applied to imaging devices photographing images of a plurality of different exposure times, it is necessary to individually perform the following processes on each of the plurality of images in which different exposure times are set:
a process of extracting a flicker component;
a process of calculating a correction coefficient of a reversed phase pattern of the flicker component; and
a correction process based on the correction coefficient.
Thus, since a hardware configuration may increase or a processing time may increase to perform the above-mentioned processes on each of the images of the different exposure times, it is undesirable to perform the processes.